General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 20-fold increase in standardized testing coming with Gates Foundation's "Common Core": [View all]maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)are enough "living wage" jobs for everyone, some people will get left out. I think there's a strong possibility that human population has gotten big enough and technology has progressed far enough that the 6B people on this planet can have all their goods and services provided for with a much smaller worker population. I have no data to back this up, I'm just agreeing with you that we have no reason to believe there's enough jobs for all able-bodied adults.
Now, I am a capitalist. I'm not suggesting the capitalism model is implemented flawlessly in the US (or anywhere). Nor do I think education can fix it. However, I do believe that US citizens have an increased probability of getting jobs that we've lost to China and other LCCs by training our students to either:
a. step into jobs that are in demand worldwide (electronics assembly, agriculture)
b. have a more solid base of knowledge to proceed to post-secondary education (writing, math, science)
We're not going to compete with China on labor costs, but if we have a workforce ready to be productive employees coming out of pubic education, we have a chance to compete on total cost.
No, I don't think education is the silver bullet but I do still believe it's necessary to improving society.